


Silk Flowers

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair muses about his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silk Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Sentoo Part 2, but before TSbyBS.

## Silk Flowers

by Silk

Author's webpage: <http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/tinsel/>

Author's disclaimer: Jim and Blair belong to PetFly and Paramount, not me. This work is not for profit.

* * *

Silk Flowers 

By Silk 

You know why I like silk flowers? Cause they can't die. That's right. They *can't*. Not even if they wanted to. Not even if Blair Sandburg is responsible for watering them and feeding them and generally taking care of them. 

Well, okay, silk flowers don't eat or drink. I know that. But they don't die, dammit, and that was my point. 

My point? I know I had one somewhere around here. Oh, yeah. Got a little bit of a hang-up about death. Ever since I died last year. 

You didn't hear about that? I'm surprised. It happened out at Rainier. The University where I work. I'm a graduate student in Anthro there. I'm also a TA. For the time being anyway. Until I publish my dissertation. 

Not that there's much chance of that happening. My thesis presupposes the existence of Sentinels. Guess you could call them whatever the inflationary equivalent of The Six Million Dollar Man is. Enhanced senses. Hypersensitive touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. The odds of finding one of these rare creatures is practically nil. 

But I found one. 

Jim Ellison. He's a cop, a detective with the Cascade PD, working in Major Crime. You might think he'd be tickled to have hyperactive senses, but you'd be wrong. To hear Jim tell it, it's as much a curse as a blessing. He saves people _all_ the time, man. It's amazing. 

That's what I tell him. But he doesn't hear me. Awe isn't much help when you're forty years old and lonely as hell and no one can hear you screaming inside. 

But I hear him. That's how I know I'll never publish. I couldn't do that to him. Cause somewhere along the line, I lost my objectivity. I fell in love with my test subject. 

That fucked things up royally. 

Especially since I couldn't tell him. Not with him pitching me out into the street with no place to go. Not with him yelling at me, real quiet-like, about how he needs someone he can trust. And that someone wasn't _me_. 

He broke my heart without even knowing it. 

But it didn't matter. 

I'm a hopeless overachiever, y'know. I don't do anything halfway. So when Jim rejected me, without even knowing why or what he was rejecting, I figured, what the hell, I've got nothing left to live for. So when Alex came along and wanted to get rid of me cause I was the most important obstacle between her and Jim, I caved. 

She didn't need the gun. She led me to the water and made me drink, made me swallow, in fact. I have to give her points for her choice of weapon, though. She destroyed me without even firing a shot. 

So yeah, I'm not really happy about dying. Dying sucked. Especially since Jim brought me back. I thought, I thought for a whole minute, that he was actually in love with me, too. And for that one fucking minute, I was happy. I came back for him. 

No, I came back because he asked me to. He _needed_ me. Note to self: Don't confuse need with love _ever_ again. 

Cause it was never the same again. Jim and I were like strangers. We had as much color and texture as...as...silk flowers. See? That's the thing. Silk flowers pass for the real thing only if you pretend, man. Yeah, they don't die, and that's cool, but they don't smell either. Cause they're not fucking real. 

Like me. 

I'm not fucking real anymore. I don't have substance. Jim looks right through me with those fucking Sentinel eyes, and I want to scream, Look at me! I'm right here! You wanted me, you got me. Now why can't you love me? 

Or...or...maybe I'm really missing my own point here. Maybe dying had nothing to do with anything. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. 

But is that what my love is? Nothing? 

It must be. 

I was important enough to Jim when I died. But I've never been that important again. 

Maybe that's what went wrong. I didn't die when I should have. I upset the balance of the universe. 

I've spent all my life coming and going, into and out of other people's lives. What's one more time, right? 

I'd give anything to be one of those silk flowers right now. They can't feel how much it hurts when someone can't love you back. 

End 


End file.
